Deborah Walker

About Deborah Walker

I’m a linguist by education, and a problem solver by trade. As a coach/player in my team, I\'ve been responsible for as many as 45 enterprise customers with an ARR of over $9M. I design and manage POCs and onboarding for enterprise customers so that our platform is effective for their content needs and compliance. Because of my extensive work with customers, I act as the customer voice with product teams to influence strategy and development. Previous to Acrolinx, I’ve done Localization and Geopolitical Strategy and Program Management for Microsoft. As the largest software company in the world, there is a high level of accountability globally, and my job has been to identify cultural risks in global marketing, content, branding, packaging, and strategy. I reviewed everything from project code names to package art and global training videos to identify anything that might hold risk to the company. It could be unintended embedded symbolism, the inclusion of something that is a cultural, religious or regional taboo, or other sensitive geopolitical content. I also reviewed names for products, services and features, and evaluated the acceptability of technical slang – from entertainment to enterprise. When there might be an issue, I suggested alternatives or ways to mitigate risk. Over the years, I have developed a vast warehouse of knowledge of subtleties and potential issues with cultural practices and differences, and I’m proud to say that in ten years, Microsoft had no negative publicity regarding the thousands of names, images, and pages of text that I vetted.My earlier time with Microsoft was producing two key Microsoft websites and then working as Localization Program Manager on Microsoft.com websites, as we localized the global online presence. In addition to a vast understanding of cultural practices and differences and the subtleties of where things can go wrong, I bring deep analysis, the ability to see problems before they occur, and a collaborative spirit. I’m a total research geek, a confident public speaker and trainer, and experienced working virtually with global teams.I\'m quick to learn and add new technical skills to my breadth of experience, which includes mark-up languages, workflow tools, and authoring tools.I am always growing my LinkedIn network so please feel free to connect with me.

Experience

1. Consulting Linguist

   Nomen - Agence De Création De Marques

   Sep 2016 — Present

   Evaluate the linguistic and cultural pertinence of brands and names for marketing to US consumers.

Education

• University of California, Berkeley

  Bachelor’s Degree

Skills

• Localization
• Training
• Multilingual
• Project Management
• Strategy
• Writing
• Geopolitics
• Technical Translation
• Software Documentation
• Cross-Cultural Communication Skills
• Program Management
• Name Development
• Leadership
• Content Management
• Trados
• Terminology
• Agile Methodologies
• Management
• Internationalization
• Product Naming
• Linguistics
• Research
• Translation
• Software Project Management
• Teaching
• Globalization
• Enterprise Software
• Vendor Management
• Website Localization
• Editing
• Technical Writing